The Shade #4 review

You may recognise the old dear on Tony Harris’s witty cover (‘Stygian Darkness’ indeed!) as one of the most … singular … characters of the Golden Age. If you don’t, I’ll leave the details to come as a surprise when you read this comic. Because it’s not one to pass up. The Shade #4 is […]

Death Curse #1 review

Horror hosts Mr Latch and the Curse offer a quintet of unsettling tales in the first issue of this adults-only new book from writers Brockton McKinney & Bo Fader and their artistic chums. Our fictional storytellers are a creepy guy with a pudding bowl haircut and a puppet baby who looks as if he’d eat […]

Secret Avengers #20 review

Now here’s a real time twister. Black Widow stars in a done-in-one story that spans seconds, weeks and decades, depending on your perspective. Natasha Romanov’s perspective is that she’s going to undo the killings of Steve Rogers, War Machine and Sharon Carter after an assault on the Shadow Council goes wrong. The obvious thing to […]

Hawk and Dove #5 review

HAWK!DOVE!DONE! I think this will be my last issue. A big part of my jumping on this book, when it debuted as part of DC’s New 52 promotion, was the presence of Sterling Gates as writer. His Supergirl work showed a huge talent for story, plotting, action and characterisation. Interviews and the first couple of […]

Thunderbolts #168 review

Luke Cage doesn’t just take the cover, he takes the spotlight this issue, complete with Bronze Age splash page legend (‘Carl Lucas was a felon going nowhere …’). The Thunderbolts director is busy rounding up pesky escapees from supervillain prison The Raft. Colleagues Songbird and Mach V, meanwhile, are confronted by the even more annoying […]

Justice League International #5 review

A recent edition of John Siuntres’ excellent Word Balloon podcast saw Marvel ‘architect’ Matt Fraction talk about the difficulty of writing 20-page comics. It’s not just a matter of cutting two pages from a 22pp story, apparently … Which confused me. As a kid raised in the days when all comics had just 17pp of story, 20pp […]

Action Comics #5 review

Krypton is dying and Jor-El sees just one way to save his family – sanctuary in the ethereal prison that is the Phantom Zone. Unfortunately, the criminals already there put paid to that idea, ending the hopes of survival for he and wife Lara. But their son can perhaps be saved, if a tiny, experimental […]

Legion: Secret Origin #3

In which Phantom Girl signs up, Invisible Kid shows up and a spaceship blows up. Said unfortunate craft is coming through a wormhole in United Planets space, and it’s assumed to be the latest assault from whoever attacked the planet Amatrom. Given its seeming size, Admiral Allon’s fleet is taking no chances and with the […]

Justice League Dark #4 review

Good Lord, this is dark stuff. Of course, the clue’s in the title, but I’ve rarely seen a non-‘mature’ book play with such disturbing imagery. Scalping, killer kids, women losing their heads … The opening serial of this DC New 52 series sees a bunch of supernatural players – ‘heroes’ might be overstating it, in […]

The Flash #4 review

How’s that for an eye-catching cover. It’s Flash using his newly discovered ability to see all possibilities in a situation. Sadly, last issue this led to a bout of over-thinking which was the death of him. Apparently. Unsurprisingly, Barry survived, his super-speed instincts kicking in and stopping a bullet to the skull from proving fatal. We don’t […]